For love is strong as death;
Jealousy is cruel as the grave:
The coals thereof are coals of fire,
Which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance of his house

for love,
It would utterly be contemned.
We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts:
What shall we do for our sister in the day when

she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of

silver:

And if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.

I am a wall, and my breasts like towers:
Then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
He let out the vineyard unto keepers;
Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thou-
sand pieces of silver.

My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:

Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand,

And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred..

Thou that dwellest in the gardens,
The companions hearken to thy voice:
Cause me to hear it.

Make haste, my beloved,

And be thou like to a roe or to a young hart

Upon the mountains of spices.

Cm n

THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth:
For the Lord hath spoken,
I have nourished and brought up children,
And they have rebelled against me.
The ox knoweth his owner,
And the ass his master's crib:
But Israel doth not know,
My people doth not consider.
Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,
A seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters:
They have forsaken the Lord,
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto
anger,

They are gone away backward.
Why should ye be stricken any more?
Ye will revolt more and more:
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart
faint.

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it;

C 123 D

But wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores:
They have not been closed, neither bound up, nei-
ther mollified with ointment.
Your country is desolate,
Your cities are burned with fire:
Your land, strangers devour it in your presence,
And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a
vineyard,

As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,
As a besieged city.

Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very

small remnant, We should have been as Sodom, And we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; Give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices

unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat

of fed beasts; And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of

lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my

courts?